1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wireless-tag-equipped article equipped with a wireless tag which emits tag information in response to electromagnetic waves, a wireless tag collective reading device which collectively reads tag information for all wireless-tag-equipped articles from a rack for storing the articles, an in-rack container position detector which automatically detects the location of each container in a rack and registers the result on a database, and a network article management system which uses a management server on a network to manage reading results by a wireless tag collective reading device and detection results by an in-rack container position detector.
2. Description of the Related Art
At present, products adapted to a 13.56 MHz band, a 2.45 GHz band, and a UHF band (950 MHz band) are prepared for various purposes as radio frequency identification (RF-ID) tags known as wire tags. The RF-ID tags of the respective frequencies are used for intended purposes.
In order to attach the wireless tags to containers such as test tubes or vacuum blood collection tubes, there have heretofore been suggestions to affix the wireless tag with seals or to bury the wireless tag in a material that constitutes the container (e.g., see Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2001-356688).
There has also been a suggestion for a technique to read, by radio waves, all wireless tags of closely arranged articles (e.g., see Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2007-156953 and Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2008-071071, and Development of sample tube (test tube) management system using “data-writable test tube” small RFID chip (news release July, 2006) Internet <http://www.maxei.co.jp/news/pdf/060714Jpn.pdf>). This reading technique is called a near-field (near region reading) technique that uses one or both (electromagnetic waves) of radio waves and a magnetic field. The wireless tags have heretofore been studied to solve the issue of how to read from a long distance. This is referred to as a far-field (long-distance region reading) technique. However, for example, at a cash register in a supermarket, there are a great number of articles in a small space, and there may also be containers containing water in the rear. In this case, it has been difficult for the conventional techniques to collectively read these articles.
A technique developed to solve this issue is called the near-field (near region reading) technique. This technique utilizes magnetic field emission in addition to the conventional radio wave emission to read wireless tags, and thereby makes it possible to read wireless tags affixed to a great number of closely arranged containers containing water in the rear.
However, there has not yet been suggested any specific method to ascertain the actual number of closely arranged containers without a reading error. This is a major problem in applications where a high degree of reliability is required, for example, in the medical field. For example, under the present circumstances, when vacuum blood collection tubes with wireless tags affixed thereto are closely stored in a rack, it is not always possible to judge whether the number read by radio electromagnetic waves corresponds to the actual number. Another extremely difficult problem is to judge whether a wireless tag is broken or whether a wireless tag is readable.
Furthermore, there have been no systems produced to automatically know the arrangement of containers such as vacuum blood collection tubes closely stored in a rack and register the arrangement on a database. This is an extremely important function for regular inventories of containers such as vacuum blood collection tubes. This process has heretofore been manually carried out one by one; resulting in considerable man-hour and costs.